Tire Treadwear - a  tool to estimate tire mileage

The treadwear rating of a tire may be useful in estimating how many miles or kilometers use you will get from a new tire.
If you missed the overview see Treadwear Part 1

How many miles will this tire give me?

As with lifespan, the mileage you get from a tire depends very much on the individual specific driving conditions which that tire is subjected to.

If you are replacing a tire with a new one and you already know how many miles (or kilometers) you have gotten in use, and the roads and driving conditions will be more or less the same you can expect something very similar with a tire that has the same tire treadwear rating.

Picking up on the earlier example if your tire with a treadwear of 240 gave you 30,000 miles use, you'd be reasonable in expecting about the same number of miles from a new tire with the same rating.

The Calculations

Start by finding the word "TREADWEAR" followed by a number. In the photo below the treadwear rating of the tire is 340.

Begin your calculations by dividing  the mileage you got from your last tire by the rating of that tire to give you a mileage factor for your own particular use. In our example dividing 30,000 by 240 gives a result of 125.

30,000 / 240 =125

Use this factor in considering tires with a different treadwear. A tire rated at 100 might be expected to last only 12,500 miles where another with a rating of 320 would have an expected life of 40,000 miles

320 x 125 = 40,000

Always remember, that if you change vehicles, or move to another area where roads or climate are different, or if another person is going to use the vehicle, the results are quite likely going to be different.

Download your own Treadwear Calculator by clicking here.

Another thing to consider is what the manufacturer's warranty states for life expectancy of the tire. If it is greatly different from what you just calculated, you need to be asking why there's a difference.

As we've mentioned before, if you are comparing two tires made by the same manufacturer, Goodyear with Goodyear, Pirelli with Pirelli, or Michelin with Michelin your results are going to be more accurate.

Especially when you are comparing major, reputable tire companies remember that in practice there is a tendency for most of the tire manufacturers to attempt to produce tires which meet the conditions of their markets and charge similiar prices. So if you compare two tires with the same treadwear numbers, their prices should be more-or-less the same.

If all these calculations give you a headache, I have a handy calculator in a slightly different article on this topic. Click here to find the on line treadwear calculator.

Return to Treadwear Overview, Part 1

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